YUKON TERRITORY, the most westerly of the northern territories of Canada, bounded south by British Columbia, west by Alaska, north by the Arctic ocean and east by the watershed of Mackenzie river. It has an area of 206,427 sq.m. (excluding water). The territory is chiefly drained by the Yukon river and its tributaries, though at the south-east corner the headwaters of the Liard river, flowing into the Mackenzie, occupy a part of its area. The margins of the territory are mountainous, including part of the St. Elias range with the highest mountains in Canada at the south-west corner, Mount Logan (19,850 ft.) and Mount St. Elias (18,008 ft.), and the north extension of the Rocky moun tains along the south and north-east sides ; here, however, not very lofty. The interior of the territory is high toward the south east and sinks toward the north-west and may be described as a much dissected peneplain with low mountains to the south. The most important feature of the hydrography is the Yukon (q.v.) and the rivers which flow into it. The Klondike gold mines are reached by river boats coming down 46o m. from White Horse, the terminus of the White Pass railway, III m. long, from Skag way on an inlet of the Pacific.
Before the discovery of gold on the Forty Mile and other rivers flowing into the Yukon the region was inhabited only by a few Indians, but the sensational finds of rich placers in the Klondike (q.v.) in 1896 brought in a vigorous population centred in the mines and at Dawson, which was made the capital of the newly constituted Yukon territory. With the decline of the gold-mining industry, the population decreased from 27,219 in 1901 to 4,157 in 1921 ; 4,230 in 1931. In 1918 an amend
ment to the Yukon Act abolished the council of the Yukon and the territory is now administered by the Northwest Territories Branch of the Canadian Department of the Interior. Law and order are enforced by members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The Yukon is represented in the Dominion Parliament by one member in the House of Commons. Placer gold is still the principal mineral product, the value of the gold output in 1925, when 52 mines were working, being £988,465. The Yukon has also been a steady producer of silver and in 1926 yielded 1,686,106 fine oz., mostly from Keno and Galena Hills, in the Mayo district. A concentrator has been installed at Keno Hill. The wide distribution of the ores of gold, copper, silver and lead indicate enormous mining possibilities. Coal, of which there are large reserves, is being mined in increasing quantities. Large game and fur-bearing animals abound.
Though so near the Pacific the Yukon territory has a rigorous continental climate with very cold winters seven months long, and delightful sunny summers. Owing to the lofty mountains to the west the amount of rain and snow is rather small, and the line of perpetual snow is more than 4,000 ft. above sea-level, so that glaciers are found only on the higher mountains; but the moss-covered ground is often perpetually frozen to a depth of Ioo or 200 ft. Vegetation is luxuriant along the river valleys, where fine forests of spruce and poplar are found, and the hardier grains and vegetables are cultivated with success.